Some materials, including, for example, garments, worn by first responders and soldiers are conventionally pretreated to protect the wearer from exposure to poisonous chemicals. The pretreatments can be applied to a wide variety of surfaces and substrates including, for example, coatings, textiles, plastics, metals, ceramics, and polymers. In operation, the treatments usually detoxify poisonous chemicals by oxidation or by preventing skin contact through repellant coatings and absorbents.
However, these conventional treatments often damage or degrade the surface or substrate on which it is applied. Alternatively, or additionally, the conventional treatments cause respiratory irritation and/or contact dermatitis in the wearer. Moreover, the conventional treatments are stoichiometric in nature—that is, each molecule of the conventional treatments neutralizes, decontaminates, or otherwise reacts with a particular number of molecules of the poisonous chemical. In some instances, the stoichiometry is one-to-one. Therefore, and over time, the treatment becomes less effective and may, in other words, wear out or be rendered completely ineffective.
Accordingly, there remains a need for substrate treatment chemicals by which a wide range of poisonous chemical agents can be neutralized so as to protect the wearer, while limiting damaging effects on the substrate or surface on which it is applied. Furthermore there is a need for pretreatment chemicals that are not respiratory irritants and/or dermatological irritants.